[81alum]

Tonight we start the road trip to LA, a critically important trip for us in which both schools are dangerous at home and wins are important to us.  We will play Oregon State, Arizona State, and C.al on the road, but this trip is like the one to Washington in that both teams are threats. 

The goal is to win, obviously, but most especially to increase our RPI and (to a lesser degree) increase standing in the polls.  What we are shooting for is to be 16 or higher in the minds of the NCAA committee so we can host the first two rounds. 

RPI 32
Sagarin 19
AP Poll (before the Arizona State loss) 11
Coaches Poll (after the Arizona State loss) 16
Record against top 25 teams:  1-4

So how will UCLA and USC help with that?

UCLA is RPI 58
USC is RPI 63

Ugh.  In other words, losing to either of them would hurt a lot, but winning won't help all that much.  Here are the only teams left on our schedule with an RPI higher than our own:

Arizona State 6
Oregon State 9
Washington 20
Cal 31

Arizona State, Oregon State, and Washington we play once (more) each.  Oregon State we only play one time total.  C.al we play twice in a single week.  And we could also probably do a lot of good for ourselves in the Pac 12 tournament.  All this assuming we play like we did in the 2nd half against ASU the rest of the season.

What can we expect this weekend? 

On paper, UCLA does not look so dangerous, at 8-9.  But they are a young team with the best incoming freshman recruits in the nation and have been gradually improving and coming together.  They are 4-2 in league and have beaten USC twice.  Nine players average 15 minutes or more.  Nirra Fields, Kari Korrver, and Jordan Canada are their three double digit scorers.  Jordin Canada is their outstanding local freshman guard, Korver is a redshirt sophomore guard, Fields is a junior guard.  Recee Caldwell is another freshman starter, and Monique Billings is an outstanding freshman forward averaging 15 minutes a game.  Immense talent on this squad, but it was extremely inexperienced and so those early losses are pretty understandable.  The three UCLA guards take a lot of three point shots, and Korver makes 41% of them.  Fields and Canada have a ton of steals.  UCLA lacks a dominant offensive post for the moment, much like Stanford.  They have a 6'3" senior center from Portugal who gets a couple of baskets a game, and a talented 6'4" Billings who is averaging 5 points a game.  But we know that it seems to take posts a bit longer than guards to adjust to the college game, and UCLA and Stanford have similar issues in that regard.

USC looks more dangerous at 11-6, and they beat us last time we played them.  They are a very different team this year, though.  They are led by Alexyz Vaioletama, a 6'1" senior forward who is shooting 53% and averaging 13 points a game.  Their scoring is pretty balanced, though, with McKenzie Calvert (a 5'9" true freshman guard) at 12, Brianna Barrett (a 5'7" junior guard) at 10, and Kanisha Horn (a 6'1" transfer senior from Alabama) at 9.  Jaco Courtney, a 5'8" sophomore guard, shoots 40% of her treys and gets 2-3 a game.  USC looks on paper to be a balanced offensive team with experienced and effective post play, slashing guards, and a three point shooter.   

[81alum]

Tonight we start the road trip to LA, a critically important trip for us in which both schools are dangerous at home and wins are important to us.  We will play Oregon State, Arizona State, and C.al on the road, but this trip is like the one to Washington in that both teams are threats. 

The goal is to win, obviously, but most especially to increase our RPI and (to a lesser degree) increase standing in the polls.  What we are shooting for is to be 16 or higher in the minds of the NCAA committee so we can host the first two rounds. 

RPI 32
Sagarin 19
AP Poll (before the Arizona State loss) 11
Coaches Poll (after the Arizona State loss) 16
Record against top 25 teams:  1-4

So how will UCLA and USC help with that?

UCLA is RPI 58
USC is RPI 63

Ugh.  In other words, losing to either of them would hurt a lot, but winning won't help all that much.  Here are the only teams left on our schedule with an RPI higher than our own:

Arizona State 6
Oregon State 9
Washington 20
Cal 31

Arizona State, Oregon State, and Washington we play once (more) each.  Oregon State we only play one time total.  C.al we play twice in a single week.  And we could also probably do a lot of good for ourselves in the Pac 12 tournament.  All this assuming we play like we did in the 2nd half against ASU the rest of the season.

What can we expect this weekend? 

On paper, UCLA does not look so dangerous, at 8-9.  But they are a young team with the best incoming freshman recruits in the nation and have been gradually improving and coming together.  They are 4-2 in league and have beaten USC twice.  Nine players average 15 minutes or more.  Nirra Fields, Kari Korrver, and Jordan Canada are their three double digit scorers.  Jordin Canada is their outstanding local freshman guard, Korver is a redshirt sophomore guard, Fields is a junior guard.  Recee Caldwell is another freshman starter, and Monique Billings is an outstanding freshman forward averaging 15 minutes a game.  Immense talent on this squad, but it was extremely inexperienced and so those early losses are pretty understandable.  The three UCLA guards take a lot of three point shots, and Korver makes 41% of them.  Fields and Canada have a ton of steals.  UCLA lacks a dominant offensive post for the moment, much like Stanford.  They have a 6'3" senior center from Portugal who gets a couple of baskets a game, and a talented 6'4" Billings who is averaging 5 points a game.  But we know that it seems to take posts a bit longer than guards to adjust to the college game, and UCLA and Stanford have similar issues in that regard.

USC looks more dangerous at 11-6, and they beat us last time we played them.  They are a very different team this year, though.  They are led by Alexyz Vaioletama, a 6'1" senior forward who is shooting 53% and averaging 13 points a game.  Their scoring is pretty balanced, though, with McKenzie Calvert (a 5'9" true freshman guard) at 12, Brianna Barrett (a 5'7" junior guard) at 10, and Kanisha Horn (a 6'1" transfer senior from Alabama) at 9.  Jaco Courtney, a 5'8" sophomore guard, shoots 40% of her treys and gets 2-3 a game.  USC looks on paper to be a balanced offensive team with experienced and effective post play, slashing guards, and a three point shooter.   

[CTcard]

UCLA is RPI 58
U$€ is RPI 63

Ugh.  In other words, losing to either of them would hurt a lot, but winning won't help all that much. 

While the latter statement may be completely true about people's subjective evaluation of the team, it's not really quite correct about the RPI.

The RPI is a simple formula that merely adds in your winning percentage (25%)* plus your opponents' winning percentage (50%)**, plus your opponents' opponents' winning percentage (25%).**

Thus winning or losing matters, period. And your opponents winning against everyone else helps. But there is no kind of power rating evaluation of individual games that makes wins over the better teams more helpful than wins over poorer teams.
Another way to put it is that an unexpected win plus an unexpected loss is a wash, subject to home/away issues.

It is repeatedly stated by commentators that losing to poor teams is particularly damaging. That is true only sort of. It is true that in a loss to a bad team both the first two parts of the formula take a hit. However, the second part takes the same hit regardless of the outcome of that game and the first isn't hurt any more than in any other loss.


* There is a home/away adjustment for a team's own winning percentage. A home win is worth 0.6 wins, a home loss 1.4 losses, an away win is worth 1.4 wins, and an away loss is worth 0.6 losses.
** Opponents' win/loss percentage isn't adjusted for home/away but is adjusted by taking out results against the team for whom you are calculating the RPI.

[CTcard]

UCLA is RPI 58
U$€ is RPI 63

Ugh.  In other words, losing to either of them would hurt a lot, but winning won't help all that much. 

While the latter statement may be completely true about people's subjective evaluation of the team, it's not really quite correct about the RPI.

The RPI is a simple formula that merely adds in your winning percentage (25%)* plus your opponents' winning percentage (50%)**, plus your opponents' opponents' winning percentage (25%).**

Thus winning or losing matters, period. And your opponents winning against everyone else helps. But there is no kind of power rating evaluation of individual games that makes wins over the better teams more helpful than wins over poorer teams.
Another way to put it is that an unexpected win plus an unexpected loss is a wash, subject to home/away issues.

It is repeatedly stated by commentators that losing to poor teams is particularly damaging. That is true only sort of. It is true that in a loss to a bad team both the first two parts of the formula take a hit. However, the second part takes the same hit regardless of the outcome of that game and the first isn't hurt any more than in any other loss.


* There is a home/away adjustment for a team's own winning percentage. A home win is worth 0.6 wins, a home loss 1.4 losses, an away win is worth 1.4 wins, and an away loss is worth 0.6 losses.
** Opponents' win/loss percentage isn't adjusted for home/away but is adjusted by taking out results against the team for whom you are calculating the RPI.

[81alum]

[quote author=81alum link=topic=11611.msg111541#msg111541 date=1422015623]
UCLA is RPI 58
U$€ is RPI 63

Ugh.  In other words, losing to either of them would hurt a lot, but winning won't help all that much. 

While the latter statement may be completely true about people's subjective evaluation of the team, it's not really quite correct about the RPI.

The RPI is a simple formula that merely adds in your winning percentage (25%)* plus your opponents' winning percentage (50%)**, plus your opponents' opponents' winning percentage (25%).**

Thus winning or losing matters, period. And your opponents winning against everyone else helps. But there is no kind of power rating evaluation of individual games that makes wins over the better teams more helpful than wins over poorer teams.
Another way to put it is that an unexpected win plus an unexpected loss is a wash, subject to home/away issues.

It is repeatedly stated by commentators that losing to poor teams is particularly damaging. That is true only sort of. It is true that in a loss to a bad team both the first two parts of the formula take a hit. However, the second part takes the same hit regardless of the outcome of that game and the first isn't hurt any more than in any other loss.


* There is a home/away adjustment for a team's own winning percentage. A home win is worth 0.6 wins, a home loss 1.4 losses, an away win is worth 1.4 wins, and an away loss is worth 0.6 losses.
** Opponents' win/loss percentage isn't adjusted for home/away but is adjusted by taking out results against the team for whom you are calculating the RPI.
[/quote]

So if you calculated our RPI by dropping our win over Connecticut, would our RPI wind up the same as if you calculated it dropping our win over Santa Barbara?

[81alum]

[quote author=81alum link=topic=11611.msg111541#msg111541 date=1422015623]
UCLA is RPI 58
U$€ is RPI 63

Ugh.  In other words, losing to either of them would hurt a lot, but winning won't help all that much. 

While the latter statement may be completely true about people's subjective evaluation of the team, it's not really quite correct about the RPI.

The RPI is a simple formula that merely adds in your winning percentage (25%)* plus your opponents' winning percentage (50%)**, plus your opponents' opponents' winning percentage (25%).**

Thus winning or losing matters, period. And your opponents winning against everyone else helps. But there is no kind of power rating evaluation of individual games that makes wins over the better teams more helpful than wins over poorer teams.
Another way to put it is that an unexpected win plus an unexpected loss is a wash, subject to home/away issues.

It is repeatedly stated by commentators that losing to poor teams is particularly damaging. That is true only sort of. It is true that in a loss to a bad team both the first two parts of the formula take a hit. However, the second part takes the same hit regardless of the outcome of that game and the first isn't hurt any more than in any other loss.


* There is a home/away adjustment for a team's own winning percentage. A home win is worth 0.6 wins, a home loss 1.4 losses, an away win is worth 1.4 wins, and an away loss is worth 0.6 losses.
** Opponents' win/loss percentage isn't adjusted for home/away but is adjusted by taking out results against the team for whom you are calculating the RPI.
[/quote]

So if you calculated our RPI by dropping our win over Connecticut, would our RPI wind up the same as if you calculated it dropping our win over Santa Barbara?

[CTcard]

So if you calculated our RPI by dropping our win over Connecticut, would our RPI wind up the same as if you calculated it dropping our win over Santa Barbara?

Not quite.
Both wins contribute the same amount to the first category, our win percentage.
However, UConn contributes a large number to the opponent's win percentage category, which clearly UCSB does not (0-17).
[Playing Santa Barbara at all hurts our RPI a lot. Losing to them wouldn't have hurt our RPI more than another loss.]


On the other hand, if we swapped our win vs UConn to a loss and also swapped our loss vs Texas to a win (both games at home) that would have no effect on our RPI.
Not a wonderful example as Texas is 14-3, but they are our worst home loss I think.

If we swapped our loss vs UNC to a win, and simultaneously swapped our win vs Prairie View AM to a loss (both neutral site), that would have no effect on our RPI.

[CTcard]

So if you calculated our RPI by dropping our win over Connecticut, would our RPI wind up the same as if you calculated it dropping our win over Santa Barbara?

Not quite.
Both wins contribute the same amount to the first category, our win percentage.
However, UConn contributes a large number to the opponent's win percentage category, which clearly UCSB does not (0-17).
[Playing Santa Barbara at all hurts our RPI a lot. Losing to them wouldn't have hurt our RPI more than another loss.]


On the other hand, if we swapped our win vs UConn to a loss and also swapped our loss vs Texas to a win (both games at home) that would have no effect on our RPI.
Not a wonderful example as Texas is 14-3, but they are our worst home loss I think.

If we swapped our loss vs UNC to a win, and simultaneously swapped our win vs Prairie View AM to a loss (both neutral site), that would have no effect on our RPI.

[BostonCard]

I agree with all that CT is saying (by the way, I have always thought that the best way to maximize RPI is to schedule games against the likely best teams in single-bid conferences).  Although there is an opponent-of-opponent component to the RPI, that is only worth 25%, and because most teams play a variety of opponents, there is much less variance in this component than in either of the others; it is going to be pretty close to 0.125 (~0.5 (the average winning percentage of all teams) * 0.25 (weighting of that component)).  Thus a good team in a bad conference will boost up the second component of the RPI, but still gives you a good chance of winning and thus giving a boost to the first component of the RPI.

Although losing to bad teams doesn't hurt our RPI any more than losing to good teams (beyond the detriment of playing a bad team), the committee does consider this in its subjective assessment of teams.  "Bad losses" hurt you when it comes time for the committee to deviate from the RPI.

BC

[BostonCard]

I agree with all that CT is saying (by the way, I have always thought that the best way to maximize RPI is to schedule games against the likely best teams in single-bid conferences).  Although there is an opponent-of-opponent component to the RPI, that is only worth 25%, and because most teams play a variety of opponents, there is much less variance in this component than in either of the others; it is going to be pretty close to 0.125 (~0.5 (the average winning percentage of all teams) * 0.25 (weighting of that component)).  Thus a good team in a bad conference will boost up the second component of the RPI, but still gives you a good chance of winning and thus giving a boost to the first component of the RPI.

Although losing to bad teams doesn't hurt our RPI any more than losing to good teams (beyond the detriment of playing a bad team), the committee does consider this in its subjective assessment of teams.  "Bad losses" hurt you when it comes time for the committee to deviate from the RPI.

BC